Good ol' Mom ...

She sent me a birthday card that was a cartoon characterization of Hillary Clinton sitting behind a desk that read "President of the United States." Inside the message reads - "See, there are things scarier then getting older." He,he.

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Now to this mountainous dung heep of a rebuttal ....

No “new” detainees have been taken to GITMO and its three camps since early in 2005. That’s three years plus with no new prisoners that are deemed the “worst of the worst” by Donald Rumsfeld (and that is the ONLY source I have found for that quote… he said it first, and it has been repeated ever since… more on this in a minute). That’s three years plus to wring as much out of these guys as they have ever known about plans and strategies and rosters and “who’s who” lists… so the potential of getting new VIABLE intel out of these guys is next to zero.

That’s 349 men that are being kept without charge or redress, with no representation outside of 4 JAG lawyers representing them all “collectively”.

We are talking about established US LAW… it is illegal to detain, incarcerate, hold, or imprison anyone for more than 48 hours without charges and legal representation (I’ll forgo the right to face one’s accusers for now)… this is one of the most cherished and valuable aspects of the US legal system… habeas corpus. I don’t recall the President or Congress suspending that right in the last 165 years….



Really, I don't get you "anti-GITMO" guys at all. What is it about this facility that drives you so insane? What? Europe doesn't like it? Big whoop. Its been there for nearly 7 years and our relationships with those nations whom have opposed its existence haven't been affected by GITMO in the least. I know, I know, "but it's antithetical to our belief system and the rule of law." First off, the Supreme Court has ruled on this subject and the chief executive has the absolute right to hold "enemy combatants" indefinitely. Of course you know of FDR and the American Japanese. Even his action was deemed legal by the Supreme Court and many of those were US citizens. Just this morning Mike Gallagher was going over the specific briefs (its driving me nuts that I can't remember the case name) that allowed for this. So lets get that straight first - GITMO is LEGAL.

Now if you want to get into "a the spirit of the law" argument and claim the administration is violating the essence of our version of justice, well all I can say is war time is no time to govern by overly sensitive sensibilities regarding fair treatment under the law - and again GITMO is legal, the executive right to hold such individuals has been challenged and each time the chief executive's powers were interpreted by the highest court in the land to include such detainment. Why do you think it is still operating? Bush won in court! And besides, the Democrats have been in charge of Congress for two years now - why haven't they cut off funding for GITMO? Can you tell me that? They could craft a bill in about two seconds that targets only that facility and they have not. Why? Perhaps they have been given good reason not to during closed door intel meetings and are going to let the administration deal with evacuating those remaining in a safe (for the US) way. I mean not even a peep out of Pelosi about GITMO. Consider why that must be?

Now, to somewhat ease those "sensibilities" as I put it, let me point out a few things. The fact that they have JAG representation (& even with military law those officers are better then any public defender I assure you) should alert you to the fact that this is not some bottomless black hole or gulag. Also, if those several hundreds of men - and this is vitally important to recognize - if those hundreds of detainees were released (& they were) then doesn't that say to you that the administration is not adverse to releasing people deemed no longer a threat or otherwise open to repatriating them to the authorities in their own land? They WANT to do this, and have shown their capacity for it via those releases. So, if their are 355 left they must have good reason and given we have had ZERO attacks in 7 years - a tremendous feat - I am willing to give Bush the latitude to repatriate, or charge, or otherwise deal with those remaining detainees in a manner and time he sees fit. His intel and profiles on these remaining peoples is something we are not privy to and his reasons for maintaining their captivity must be valid in my estimation otherwise he would have released them in the fashion of the others - he's clearly shown he will do just that.

By the way it's "Johnny Jihad", not the other way around, and he is an American citizen - slightly different rules apply. And NO, the Constitution is not applicable to every human on earth, otherwise we could arrest someone in Russia for murder, bring them here and try them for that murder since it's expressly outlawed in the US. Really, this is just silly, this "universal applicability" of our constitution to every man and woman on earth - it just isn't so. All men are created equal, but not all men are protected by or subject to our laws. I'm not saying that means we can commit any sadistic act to non citizens, I'm just saying that this "universal" interpretation of our constitution as applicable to all walking the planet is simply nonsensical and certainly not practiced by our government, under any administration.

And for you to attempt to use "Johnny Jihad" and that other kid as examples of the typical "worst of the worst" is juvenile reasoning. You have ZERO access to the profiles on the remaining detainees and to point to those two specifically with no access to the others files/profiles is misleading and misrepresentative of the overall make up of GITMO detainees. And that fact, that YOU DO KNOW of Johnny Jihad, demonstrates to me that the GITMO facility and decisions on detainment is properly functioning and employs both reason and common sense. Really, to paint the entire prisoner make-up with that brush is "Move on" territory and an argument not to be taken seriously.

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We are fighting a war that hasn't been fought by the US previously, but we can see the mistakes that nations who have fought this kind of war in the past have made, and we should be learning from their mistakes. The UK, Israel, Russia, Italy, Turkey... even Iraq and Iran. All have shown us the ways NOT to fight a terror-based insurgent or guerrilla enemy. Yet, in my opinion, we have fallen in-step with the same failed policy that nearly all of these nations have used in the past. That makes no sense to me.

Have any of those nations you named, Israel et al, did they go - after the first act of terror was perpetrated against their citizens - 7 straight years without a SINGLE attack on their homeland? Your above statement simply doesn't jive with that fact. We are doing one hell of a job, and we have more effectively combated asymmetrical warfare then any nation in modern history. Namely, because we took the fight to them, drew them into only a few foreign locations (Iraq & Afghanistan) where they are confronted with the most lethal fighting force the world has ever known. That "drain the swamp" reasoning may seem too simplistic to you, but it's clearly working - Jihadists want to make their bones in those theaters, not Brooklyn or NEPA. And for those plotting here, clearly they have been thwarted. Both of these points invalidates the claim that we have fallen into a historical pattern of failure. The record thus far clearly demonstrates a high level of success.

And this is what I'm driving at - you and others react in almost orgasmic ways when a "Bush at War" documentary comes along, or when GITMO officials make mistakes, or Abu Grhab. You get to say "see, see, they're doing it wrong" and you point out what should have been done instead because correcting a sitting president makes you feel smart, and because it confirms an internal bias for people with an (R) in front of their names. Of course they haven't been perfect, Bush et al that is, but lets give credit where credit is due - they've done one hell of a job in this century's new war - the war on terror. They properly used GITMO as it was necessary and as as it becomes less so they stopped importing prisoners and starting exporting remaining detainees. They took the fight to the enemy, in his backyard, and they have been successful in every legal challenge they faced be it water boarding, domestic terrorist surveilling, or GITMO. I know this because they're all still in use and no one has been indicted. Two murderous regimes have been removed, countless lives saved and not a single attack on our homeland since 9/11. THAT is a helluva goodoverall record.

I think history will judge George W. Bush much more kindly then you, or Frontline producers. It is the big shifts in history that shape the legacy of a presidency. Do people think of Reagan and say Iran/Contra, no (well maybe you do, but not the majority of Americans). The Berlin wall crumbling is the image conjured up and that was after he left office. FDR, internment camps? No. Winning in Europe and fireside chats comes to mind. Our people, the American people, want to remember their wartime presidents favorably and if at the end of the day victory is achieved, even if it's after their presidency (as with the Berlin Wall) their name is forever associated with SUCCESS, and I think this will be the case with our 43rd president.